STEAHLY LIGHTING KIT

Nothing is harder than lights. You might as well try to modify your motocross bike for interplanetary flight as try to put lights on it. First you have to figure out some way to power the lights, then deal with wiring and so on until you’ve spent almost $1000 bucks. And when it’s all done, you never have something as reliable as original equipment lights.
Take heart, times are changing. Most of today’s bikes have Power Jet carbs, which require electrical current to operate. Sure enough, there’s a new coil down there that goes to a rectifier and then into a little black box that tells a solenoid in the carb when to open and shut. Chuck Steahly at Steahly Off-Road Products decided to see if the power generated down there was enough to power a headlight. What do you know? It is!
So now Steahly offers a kit to make tapping into that power source easy. The kit consists of a UFO twin-beam headlight with special bulbs, an on/off/hi/low switch and a splice connector. Installation is easy because the instructions tell you which wire has the juice, so you’re not down there with a voltmeter. Then it’s just a matter of hooking up the ground wire and figuring out where to put the switch.
Of course, a zillion questions arise.
Does it interfere with the operation of the Power Jet? From our experience, no. We installed it on an RM250 which ran the same before and after installation. Apparently the Power Jet coil generates a lot of current and a solenoid uses very little. On the RM, that same coil powers another solenoid on the power valve breather–other bikes don’t have this. Suzuki probably went overboard with the power output because of the double use.
Does the light go on and off at different rpm? No. You tap into the power supply before it goes into the black box that tells the Power Jet when to do its thing.
Does it make enough power to ride at night? Almost. If you plan on racing Baja, forget it. If you just need a light to get you home in a pinch or to use close to the campsight, it’s fine. It makes almost as much light as a stock XR250 or KDX200.
Does it work on all bikes? Obviously it doesn’t work too well on bikes without Power Jets. That leaves out ’99 & ’00 Hondas, and all older bikes. It works best on Suzukis and Kawasakis. We understand installing it on a Yamaha is difficult, but we haven’t tried ourselves.
How much does it cost? The kit retails for $105. You can try to do it yourself, but you’ll drive the guys at Radio Shack crazy trying to find the right bulbs. We think it’s the bargain of the century. For more information, contact Steahly at 1-800-800-2363.